NAACP says Black women disproportionately hit by cuts

by: Rosi Efthim

Mon Jun 20, 2011 at 12:33:25 PM EDT

Study: Black Women, Professionals Would be Disproportionately Affected by Trenton's Cuts

Ben Jealous, President and CEO of the NAACP issued a strongly worded statement, calling on Trenton leaders to respect the right to collective bargaining as a new report says moves to significantly cut the health care and pension benefits of state workers could fall hardest on New Jersey's black middle-class - particularly on black women and black workers with professional degrees. Ben Jealous:

We see this same pattern in many states and cities across the nation.  Public sector jobs are critical in communities of color and attacks on bargaining rights and health care disproportionately affect our communities.  The NAACP nationally and in NJ supports bargaining rights, not stripping these rights at this critical time.  This recession will never end if benefits and wages continue to decline in all sectors.  Now public workers are under attack everywhere and we stand with them.

Public sector jobs have served as the gateway to the middle-class for thousands of black New Jerseyans," said Jeffrey Keefe, a professor of Labor and Employment Relations at the Rutgers School of Management and Labor Relations and author of today's report. "But those quality jobs are now threatened by Trenton's proposed cuts to public workers.  These cuts will fall disproportionately on African-American workers and their families, further damaging a community still struggling to recover from the economic downtown.  Black women, who make up 78% of the black public sector workforce, and Black workers with professional degrees will be particularly hard hit.

The report's key findings include: